


Wheel of Westeros Book Two: Rise of Daenerys Part One

by annmcbee



Series: Wheel of Westeros [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-17
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2020-09-06 08:37:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20288578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annmcbee/pseuds/annmcbee
Summary: Queen Daenerys suffers a terrible trauma before returning to a city in crisis. Jon Snow prepares a ranging to Hardhome while dealing with the aftermath of his resurrection. A young assassin must escape her trainers before its too late.





	Wheel of Westeros Book Two: Rise of Daenerys Part One

_Disclaimer:_

_This fan fiction is meant neither to be a continuation of George R. R. Martin’s _A Song of Ice and Fire_ series, nor a revision of seasons 6-8 of the HBO series, _Game of Thrones_. It is meant to stand alone, independent of those works, and can be read alone by those who have not seen the TV series or read the books. Having said that, this work will borrow from not only _Game of Thrones_ and _A Song of Ice and Fire, _but from multiple other works of film, television, music and literature. Please see footnotes for references, and feel free to point out any I’ve forgotten._

Chapter 1: Daenerys

Daenerys Targaryen was dying. The Dothraki Khals and their Kos, about thirty men altogether, stood mocking her, making obscene gestures, shouting at her…their cruel faces lit within the dark temple by giant iron torches. After they had determined that she must be punished for going out into the world after the death of her husband, the great Khal Drogo, she had informed them with unflinching determination that they were small men, unfit to lead the Dothraki. _But I am,_ she had said, _so I will._ The khals had gotten a hearty laugh out of that. Jhaqo had angrily called her a foul name and asked, _Do you really expect us to serve the likes of you?_ He and his Ko Mago then proceeded to remove the rough-hewn leather smock that the women of the Dosh Khaleen had given her to wear. They groped and pinched her to keep her still while they tied her hands together and suspended her from a rafter above. She was to be whipped by each man in attendance one time, and if she survived, and perhaps even if she did not, she was to submit her body to every Khal and Ko in the Temple of the Dosh Khaleen, as many times and for as long as they saw fit.

Her last words had been, “You’re not going to serve. You’re going to die.”[1]

Her sentence had been decided before she had ever entered the temple. The slave masters of Yunkai had offered ten thousand horses for her dead body. Mereen was currently under attack by the Yunkish masters, who were catapulting the plague-infested corpses of their dead over the walls. She had learned this from the other widowed Khaleesis, who had dressed her and nursed her to health after Jhaqo had brought her to Vaes Dothrak. She had come in suffering from some illness that wracked her insides and induced explosive, watery diarrhea, and so they had put her in separate quarters and fed and watered her from dishes crudely fashioned from wide leaves. They touched nothing Dany touched. When she finished eating or drinking, she was ordered to throw the makeshift bowls and cups into her fire. When she was well, they burned the furs she had slept in as well and gave her a fresh smock. Only the high priestess named Maebi had made any contact with her, and even she had relocated her own sleeping quarters temporarily to be separate from the others until it was certain she did not become ill herself. All Dany could think about was the bloody flux that would no doubt be raging through Mereen, extinguishing the people she had sworn to protect and lead.

So the women had patched her and cured her, all so she could be beaten and raped until she was most like to die. But Dany would not submit to a life with the widows of the Dosh Khaleen. She told as much to Shyrli[2], a young curious girl she had made her confidant during her stay with the widows. _I am a queen,_ she told the girl, _and when I return to my throne, I would take you with me. _Shyrli had shaken her head and said it was forbidden, but Dany had seen the stars in her eyes. This girl wanted to leave too. Dany had learned over time that a lot might be learned from looking into a person’s eyes. Shyrli’s eyes were a bewitching black like the night sky and just as vast in dreams and hopes.

As the whipping began, Dany kept her eyes on the flame burning in one of the standing torches. She had watched the widows filling the torch bowls with animal fat and discovered quickly that the buckets of water that sat in every corner of the temple were not for pissing in. The torches were intentionally large and heavy. None of the widows could move one even an inch. But if someone with the girth of Jhaqo were to give one a shove, or perhaps stumble into one of them (or be pushed), it might tip. However, none of the torches were quite close enough to where Dany took the lash, her legs weakening and her screams tearing her throat. She felt her flesh opening, and the blood running down between her cheeks. When the twentieth man took hold of the whip, her vision became wonky, and then everything became darkness.

Chapter 2: Jon

Jon stood in the tower staring up at the night sky. He had taken the evening watch, because he couldn’t sleep. It was a full moon, and too bright. He just couldn’t keep himself in his bed. Since his return, he found himself fatigued during the day and wildly energetic at night…especially clear nights like this one. His brothers didn’t argue when he insisted upon taking night patrol, even though it was clear he was no longer interested in being Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch. Once he had chopped off the heads of Othell Yarwyck, Bowen Marsh, and Wick Wittlestick, he took off his commander’s cloak and threw it at Dolorous Edd. _Keep it,_ he told Edd. _Or burn it. My watch is ended. _[3] But no other Lord Commander had yet been elected, and here was Jon, on patrol, gazing up at a moon that seemed to want something from him, though he didn’t know what, and donning a cloak that he no longer felt should belong to him. He wore his leather armor and Stark breastplate at all times now, and covered his head with a woolen cap to keep off the cold. Though it was beginning to come in rapidly, his once long black hair was now a coat of velvet over his skull…and yet, every scar he’d ever earned remained, including those made by his killers.

Jon had removed each of their heads himself. His father Ned Stark had always said the man who passes the sentence should wield the sword. Their defense, that Jon had broken his vows, didn’t hold up for the other brothers, a suddenly larger number of whom wished to gain Jon’s favor. When Jon again opted for beheading rather than hanging, few questioned the choice. After all, they had desecrated his body. Wittlestick went first, as he had held the first knife. When Marsh’s head had fallen into the snow, his body had stayed bent over the block for a bizarrely long time. Blood poured in a pulsing stream from his neck. Jon felt a terrible urge, and held his hand in the flow, catching the blood in his cupped palm and holding it to his nose to sniff it. Usually blood had a rusty smell…almost like offal when it was dried and clotted. But it had smelled sweet to Jon, and only the incredulous looks of the men stopped him from licking it off his fingers. The next day, Edd had dropped the cloak off at his door with a shrug.

The men were all looking differently at him. So were the Freefolk, for by now Tormund and Leathers had informed all of them about what happened. Tormund said some of them thought he might be one of the old gods in human form. Others said he might be the old Night’s King of legend who married a corpse bride. This was less flattering, since the old king of the Nightfort in the North was renowned for his cruelty and malice. Queen Selyse and her knights gave him a wide berth, with the exception of Ser Axell Florent, who relayed messages for him from time to time. The only exception was Devan Seaworth, King Stannis’s young squire, who now seemed to follow him everywhere. He was more attentive than Edd. But the only company Jon really wished for was that of Ghost, who hadn’t reappeared since the night of Jon’s murder. However, Jon always knew where he was…when he could sleep, they hunted together.

Queen Selyse now wanted Jon to continue with his plan to take back Winterfell, insisting that Stannis, if he was alive, would pardon him for his desertion of the Night’s Watch. But Jon saw himself as already pardoned by his own death, and it did seem that the brothers agreed, if for no other reason than to be rid of him, whatever he was. Then she had offered him a place on Stannis’s Kingsguard…and of course the earlier offer to legitimize him still stood. Stannis had pledged to make him Lord of Winterfell, declaring him by royal decree to be Jon Stark, trueborn son of Ned Stark, and no longer a bastard by rights. It was something Jon had always wanted, but that same day, the brothers had elected him Lord Commander over Bowen Marsh. Jon knew which would make Ned more proud, and he refused Stannis…at the time. Jon wondered if Marsh had begun planning to murder him soon after the election. Just waiting for an opportunity, like Jon forswearing his vows to go to Winterfell. It seemed so very long ago.

But the attack on Winterfell had become second priority. Hardhome had supplanted it. The next morning, while the sky was still clear, he would range out along with Tormund, Leathers, Edd, and more of the brothers than had agreed previous. They would sail from Eastwatch-by-the-Sea into the Bay of Seals and use the ships to bring any who would come to the Island of Skagos. Then it was a matter of setting up camp on the island, which was populated with a particularly notorious tribe of Northmen…outcasts. The Skaggossons, also called the Stoneborn or the more derogatory “Skaggs,” were more like Wildlings than most Northmen, or like the Ironborn of the Iron Islands, who were also known mostly as raiders. It was said the Stoneborn ate human flesh during the winter. It was also said that they traded in obsidian, the black glass-like rock that could be used to kill White Walkers.

Tycho Nestoris, a representative from the Iron Bank in the city of Braavos in the East, would also be traveling with them to Eastwatch. It was his arrival that changed Jon’s determination to go to Winterfell. He had arrived not long after the executions of Jon’s murderers, telling the men at that gate that he had come with the bride of Ramsay Bolton in order to provide her sanctuary. He was accompanied by Ser Justin Massey of the Queen’s men, a smiling, easy-going knight with white-blonde hair and pink cheeks. Satin had breathlessly brought Jon the news, hardly able to finish before Jon had dashed at full speed to the courtyard to greet his little sister Arya. His heart had felt full for the first time since his return, but in moments it was empty again. The bedraggled and frostbitten girl standing next to Nestoris was not Arya Stark but Jeyne Poole, the daughter of a Winterfell steward, of age with his other younger sister Sansa. Jeyne had never had much to say to him when they were children, but she flew into his arms as soon as she laid eyes on him. She wouldn’t let go until he had safely set her up in his own chambers for warmth and sleep. As soon as she lay down, she was snoring.

Nestoris was a long lanky man with a long beard who wore a funny-looking cone-shaped purple hat to match his purple cloak. Before they settled business regarding the trip to Eastwatch, he told Jon that Jeyne had stood in for Arya to make good on a deal with the Boltons, made when it was thought Arya would resurface. Jon’s littlest sister had disappeared following the execution of their father at King’s Landing, and was now presumed dead. When last Nestoris saw Stannis, however, the king was alive and had signed the proper papers to obtain a loan. Stannis was about to execute Theon Greyjoy for treason, and then march on Winterfell. Nestoris had tried to discourage the march in favor of waiting until the funds came in so they could lay a proper siege, and Stannis had agreed to consider it, nothing else.

Jeyne had begged to spare Theon’s life, as he had been her rescuer, but Stannis was less receptive to that. Jon was in a daze, but had nodded in agreement. Theon had been Ned Stark’s ward, treated as a son, and after leaving Winterfell to fight with Jon’s brother Robb, turned his cloak and attacked Winterfell, taking it while it was relatively unprotected. For reasons Jon couldn’t fathom, he had hung and burned alive Jon’s two youngest brothers, Bran and Rickon. Bran couldn’t move from the waist down due to a fall from a tower, and Rickon was still practically a baby…or had been the last Jon had seen him. It only bothered Jon that he wouldn’t get the chance to see Theon swinging from a rope himself, or better yet, burning in one of the red god’s night fires.

The sorrow of knowing that Arya might be dead after all had pierced Jon’s brain like an arrow. But then he thought of what Jeyne had looked like. Those parts of her face which were not black with frostbite were darkened with bruises. Her neck was ringed with purple bite marks, some of which had drawn blood and scabbed over. What must Ramsay have done to her, for her to risk escape through the storms between Winterfell and Stannis’s camp at the crofter’s village? That Arya didn’t endure that agony relieved him so profoundly that he doubled over. Every emotion was physical now. He often fought the urge to scream. After Jeyne had been set up in her chambers and Nestoris and Massey seen to, Jon had gone to his own chambers and whipped his black cloak off his shoulders, wadded it into a ball, and screamed into it at the top of his lungs. Then he threw the cloak out the window. Edd brought it back to him later.

Jon’s hearing was sharper now. He sometimes thought he heard the Freefolk women, though yards away and protected in their huts made of skins, whispering over their cooking fires. He could hear rats in the cellars, stomping like mammoths.[4] Now he heard footsteps climbing the tower long before his watch partner Harle the Handsome did. Predictably, it was Ser Devan.

“My Lord,” Devan said. “If I might have a word.”

Jon turned to face him. Devan was younger than Jon, and still didn’t have a beard. He was very serious for his age, but Jon supposed he understood. Devan had lost two brothers, and maybe a father…just as Jon had. Boys in their position became men before their time.

“Should you leave the Lady Melisandre alone, Ser Devan? It’s not entirely safe here in case you hadn’t noticed.”

Devan’s cheeks turned even redder than the cold had made them. His scent changed ever so slightly. “The Lady Melisandre needs no one. I attend to her only because I want to, and I’m happy to serve her. But now I want to serve you.”

Jon lifted an eyebrow. It was obvious Devan was sweet on the red priestess. “And how is it you wish to serve me? Further, what makes you think I need your service?”

“I want to go with you to Hardhome.”

“No.” Jon didn’t really mean to be so curt to the young man. Lately, it was frustratingly difficult to surmise the future or weigh the past when he made decisions. “It’s too dangerous. The foe we may face is no way to test the skills of a squire.”

“My lord I beg you. Let me swab the decks of the ships. Let me clean breeches…sharpen swords. I care not. I will do whatever you ask.”

“Why?”

Devan looked as if Jon’s asking was preposterous. “Because. You are the Lord’s chosen. You must be.”

“Is that what the red woman says?”

“The Lady Melisandre says little these past few days. The truth is I am getting into this ranging party, one way or another. I _am_ going with you.”

Jon sighed and turned back to the vast expanse beyond the towers of Castle Black. “Good night, Ser Devan,” he said. Harle was sleeping, so Jon kicked him in the shin.

After a long pause, he heard Devan’s footsteps walking away.

Chapter 3: Daenerys

As the dark enveloped her, Dany heard a voice. Her mind reached for the sound, and suddenly Khal Drogo, her sun and stars himself, sat before her on a throne made of melted swords. It was the Iron Throne, where her own father and all the Targaryen kings of Westeros had sat. The swords seemed to dance and twirl and change position, and Dany remembered that she didn’t know what the throne looked like. She had never seen it, though she had imagined it a million times. It was made from the swords of the enemies of her ancestor, Aegon Targaryen, after he conquered the kingdoms centuries ago, melted together with dragon fire.

“Hello Daenerys. I’ve something to talk to you about,” Drogo said, but his words were strange and very unlike his manner of speaking. Drogo smiled at her, his amber eyes gleaming. His long braid hung over his right shoulder. On his left shoulder, the wound that had killed him shone pink and black.

“My sun and stars, I’ve missed you!”

“No sweetheart it’s your brother Rhaegar. This is a dream.”

“Rhaegar?” Dany was confused. Of course, she didn’t know what her brother Rhaegar looked like either. He had died before she was born, killed by the usurper Robert Baratheon while fighting for his lady love, Lyanna Stark. She only knew that he was beautiful and a great warrior, and that was according to her brother Viserys, now dead as well. But when Dany thought “beautiful” and “great warrior,” she thought of Drogo.

“Sister, you will survive this,” Rhaegar/Drogo said.

“I’m trying. I really am.”

“Listen little sister. There comes a time in a Targaryen’s life, and Daenerys maybe that time for you is now, when you have to start thinking of the future…”

“No offense dear brother, but speak for yourself,” Dany said. How many times had she stared at the Western horizon? How many times had she told herself, _if I look back I am lost?_ “I’m not the one chasing prophecies found in books written by dead men to my death.”[5]

“You aren’t defeated yet, Dany. The Lords of Westeros are sheep. You are the blood of the dragon, remember?”

“But the pale mare…the flux. If I can’t help the people of Mereen…”

“Dany, _the flux_ is pure evil. It is a fat little bug that needs to be…destroyed. When there is a _flux,_ you have to fight it. You can’t reason with the _flux._ You can’t wish it away. The _flux _doesn’t play by the rules so neither can you.”

“But my dragons…some who die will be innocent..”

“And you can’t listen to what anybody else tells you. You have to be willing to give up everything… because _the flux_ will take everything. When you have _flux,_ you fight, because it doesn’t matter who lives or dies. You _must_ refuse to let that fat little bug make you feel powerless!”[6]

“I understand…yes. I understand!”

“Drogon is calling you know…don’t you hear him? _Wake up_!”

Then she was conscious again, the pain in her back so deep and exquisite she couldn’t even scream. She was no longer tied to the rafter. Instead, she was laying on a cushion made of fur and filled with horsehair. Khal Jhaqo was raping her at a sweaty, frenzied pace. Though her vision was still blurry and the pain was paralyzing, she could see his eyes were closed. She wasn’t bound in any way…perhaps they thought she was dead. Perhaps she had been dead. Then Dany saw the flames dancing over the torch just behind him.

Summoning as much strength as she could, Dany opened her throat and let out a high-pitched war scream, the same ululating howl that all Dothraki riders made when they rode into battle. She held it for a long enough time that Jhaqo stopped and held still for a moment, then she drew in another breath and did it again. Jhaqo looked mystified, then looked up to the roof as the sound of a dragon’s screeching roar could be heard from the sky above the temple. He withdrew himself from her, startled, and Dany lifted one leg and extended it with all her might. Her heel landed hard on Jhaqo’s testicles, and now it was he who howled. The other khals, with the exception of a few who must have excused themselves, had been bunched together, watching her degradation. Now those who weren’t laughing at Jhaqo turned and tried to break through the mob, probably curious and frantic about the sound of the dragon. Jhaqo was brushed aside and lost his footing. He fell hard against the torch, and it toppled. He had put too much oil in his braid, and his entire head became a torch itself. His screams gave Dany a burst of courage.

All at once, the temple was aflame. The spilling oil became a torrent of fire that engulfed many of the khals at once, and soon caught the temple walls, which were made of very old skins. There were three exits: one large one in front and a couple of smaller ones in the back. But the men who tried to open them found them barred. The day of her trial, Dany had asked Shyrli to slip fire logs into the handles, and apparently she had obeyed. Some men grabbed buckets of water and attempted to put out the fire, but smoke blinded them. The fire fizzled, but stayed burning in too many places at once. By the time the khals were able to break open the doors, more than half of them were burning along with the temple. But Dany was not. Amid the burning and the screaming of dying Dothraki khals, Dany stepped out into the night, untouched. Just as she had been by the pyre of Khal Drogo, the one that had burned the body of her first love along with the witch who had killed him, and had brought her dragons to life.

As she emerged, naked and bloody, the Dothraki outside ran toward the burning temple. Many ran with water to put the fire out. Others just stared in awe at Dany, and at the dragon who flew above her. Drogon landed in front of her then, as if to shield her, emitting a terrifying roar. In the days that Dany had been held with the Dosh Khaleen, he had grown larger. He was now big enough to smash a small wayn with a flick of his tail. He laid his scaly wing before her, like a staircase of skin and flesh, and Dany climbed once more upon his back. The pain was now replaced by a wild exhilaration as they soared. Dany spied the khals who had escaped the temple and were now running. Clutching one of Drogon’s horns, she shouted, _Dracarys_, and those khals and their kos were consumed entirely along with their horses. The Dothraki descended into a wild panic, into the midst of which Dany directed Drogon to land, cutting them off. With the fires burning around them, there was nowhere to go. Dany sat tall on Drogon’s neck, her head bare, her breasts, belly and face black with soot and splashed with blood. She let out a battle scream and then shouted in Dothraki, “Vaes Dothrak! Hear me! Hear me!”

The Dothraki women and surviving riders stopped and bent low before her.

“I am Daenerys of House Targaryen, mother of dragons and breaker of chains, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea. I am not queen of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men…but I shall be!” Dany continued in Dothraki.

Now more Dothraki gathered. Many were women, wailing. Others were lower-ranking bloodriders who had seen their Khals terminated in flames. They all bent the knee. Dany’s voice carried over them all.

“Your khals are dead, and I live. Do you see that no fire can touch me? Do you see that you cannot run? Fear not, my people, for you are given a gift today!”

The crowd that gathered grew until Dany could barely see the end of it. She raised her voice as loud as possible and let it carry over the starry night.

“Every khal who ever lived chose three bloodriders to fight beside him and guard his way. But I am not a khal. I will not choose three bloodriders. I choose you all! I will ask more of you than any khal has ever asked of his khalasar. You will ride the wooden horses across the black salt sea! You will kill my enemies in their iron suits and tear down their stone houses! Together, we will be the stallion that mounts the world!”

A few yells rose up from the crowd, followed by more. Men still on their horses held up their scythe-like arakhs and beat their chests.

“Will you give me the Seven Kingdoms, the gift that Khal Drogo promised me before the Mother of Mountains?”

The shouts that rose in a deafening, mad cacophony gave her answer.[7]

Chapter Four: Arya

Arya Stark awoke in Lady Merry’s tiny bedchamber, momentarily confused, for the wool blanket was pulled over her face making it seem like nighttime and warm. In fact, it was morning, and a chilly one at that. She sat up and threw off her covers. Merry had worked a miracle, for her wounds were markedly less painful. When she had crept bleeding into Merry’s house in the south market section of Braavos, she had given herself up for dead. The Waif had gotten her maybe half a dozen times in the midsection with a long dirk, narrowly missing her heart. Arya was able to wrest herself free by shifting her hips and placing one leg behind the Waif’s, then seizing her arm and flinging her overhead. Then she had leapt into the canal nearby, which was filthy with every manner of waste and water-bug one could imagine. For a full minute and a half, she swam beneath the water to create some distance between herself and the Waif, in hopes that she would assume Arya had drowned. When she finally surfaced, her eyes stung and wept from the foulness of the canal. It was first time tears had escaped those eyes since she had seen her mother Catelyn and brother Robb murdered so long ago. Whatever was in the canal that hurt her eyes couldn’t be doing her stab wounds any more good than the bleeding, which she could only begin to staunch with the scarf she wore around her waist when she wore the face of Pretty Mercy.

When she had finally come home, Lady Merry did her best to stitch Arya’s wounds. The stitch job was impressive, which Merry attributed to years of cheating lovers who she regretted stabbing with kitchen knives. But Arya had lost so much blood already that she was almost too weak to thank her. _Don’t thank me yet,_ Merry had said. _Let’s just pray they don’t fester._ Arya’s entire belly was swollen and hot, and the pain was so incredible that she finally let Merry give her milk of the poppy so she could sleep. Now Arya lifted her bloodstained shirt to see that the wounds had closed beautifully. There was some bruising but the redness and swelling were nearly gone…and now Arya needed to be gone, before she endangered Merry any further.

The first danger to Lady Merry, the beautiful mummer about Arya’s mother’s age, had been Arya herself. The Many-Faced God had demanded another life, another face. Arya’s training with the Faceless Men had been almost complete when she had killed not just the man they had chosen, but another man, a despicable raper who she chanced to know when she was Cat of the Canals. As restitution for her first failure, the Faceless Men had struck her blind, and for months after she trained with sword and bow staff without the benefit of vision. Her sparring partner, the Waif, had trained her well. She was brutal, true, but that made Arya more determined. When her vision was restored, the Kindly Man gave her another chance. She was to murder Merry the mummer, who acted in the role of Queen Cersei at a local play. She was not to question why, although as she grew to be acquainted with Merry’s troupe, it became obvious that the younger redhead playing Arya’s own sister Sansa had ordered it.

But Merry’s performance had moved Arya. The play was nonsense…a mostly fictional version of the events surrounding the deaths of kings Robert and Joffrey Baratheon, and of Tywin Lannister, Joffrey’s uncle and Hand of the King. It reinforced Cersei Lannister’s version of events in which, following Robert’s death during a boar hunt, her father Ned Stark committed treason, attempting to take the Iron Throne from the “rightful heir,” Joffrey. Arya watched them depict her father’s execution in a comical fashion, the mummer’s portrayal of Ned based on the typical stupid, bumbling Northman. During the act in which King Joffrey was poisoned at his own wedding, Arya had expected to laugh. But Merry’s grieving mother was so convincing, the smile had withered from her face. To think she nearly shed a tear for the man who had ordered her father’s beheading, for the woman who had put him in chains and conspired to murder her mother and brother!

_Plays are powerful_, Arya had realized. She went back and saw the play several times, sneaking in as Mercy, who looked herself like she must be a mummer, with her pretty red lips, creamy skin and womanly figure. Every time she saw it, she shivered when Joffrey died in Cersei’s arms. She wondered if it was true that Cersei’s own younger brother, a dwarf named Tyrion who some called the Imp, had killed Joffrey with Sansa’s help. She doubted it, for the rest of the account was preposterous, and Sansa was never the killing kind.

One night, Arya caught Merry’s attention, and she could not resist the chance to talk to her. In her nervous fawning, Arya had made the suggestion that, if Merry liked, she might add a little fire to Joffrey’s death scene by threatening to kill Sansa then and there. _She wouldn’t just cry, _Arya had said. _She’d be angry._ Merry actually took the suggestion, and not only did it make the play a little more exciting, it made Cersei look less like a victim…both improvements, and not only in Arya’s eyes. The night Arya put the poison in Merry’s rum, Merry had been so kind and grateful. She even invited her to join the troupe. In the end, when Merry lifted the bottle to her lips, Arya had knocked it out of her hands. _Watch out for that one,_ she said, pointing to the redhead, _for she wants you dead.**[8]**_

After that, there was no going back. Merry had insisted on inviting her to her little house for a drink, and once there Arya had told her everything. She expected Merry to faint of horror when she slid her hand over Mercy’s face, removing the disguise and appearing as herself. But Merry was of stronger stuff, and knew all about the Faceless Men. Furthermore, she wasn’t afraid of Arya, despite the reputation of the assassins who hailed from the House of Black and White. She was curious about the magic of it, how they took the faces of the dead and kept them, then by placing them over their own faces, they became the dead person to others’ eyes – not just the face, but the body and clothes as well. When she wore Mercy’s face, Arya appeared to everyone else to be the little blue-eyed beauty with thick curls and a winning smile, the circumstances of whose death Arya did not know. But when she slid off the face, tucking it into her palm like a leathery napkin, she was Arya again – brown-haired, grey-eyed Arya with her long awkward chin and arms and legs tight with muscles.

Now she had to leave Merry, once and for all and quickly. She had stolen a life from the Faceless God, and now she owed him. If the Waif came to Merry’s house when she was there, Merry might be hurt or even killed. Arya got out of bed and put on her shoes. She shuffled out to where Merry was sitting in a chair by her cooking fire, boiling water, probably for tea. Her wig was gone, and underneath it, brown stringy hair just like Arya’s. As Arya grew closer, she could see Merry was weeping and sniffling. Her back was turned, and Arya suddenly felt rude.

“Good morning…” she announced.

Merry screamed and leapt out of her chair, causing it to fall backward onto the floor. She spun around and stared at Arya with her mouth agape and her face ashen.

“Sorry…I didn’t mean to sneak up on you,” Arya said.

Merry gulped and blinked. She put a hand over her heart and said, “It’s fine…_it’s absolutely and completely fine_!”

Then she laughed and ran to Arya, hugging her tight.

“Are you all right?” Arya asked, feeling awkward. “I saw you were crying.”

Merry pulled away and examined Arya with a wide smile. “Of course I was crying. You were dead!”

Chapter 5: Daenerys

“Your hair grows back very silky and shiny my queen,” said Missandei.

Dany nodded and brought her hand to her head, feeling the growth that now covered her crown like a soft carpet. She sat surrounded by her handmaidens Irri and Jhiqui, young Dothraki women who had been with her since Drogo, and her young herald Missandei, whom she had hired after burning her former master to ashes. Missandei was just eleven, but wise beyond her years due to her experiences as a slave taken from the island of Naath. The young women had bathed her and changed the bandages on her wounds as they did each morning since Dany had returned to the pyramid of Mereen. Her previous chambers had been burned by the Yunkish slave masters’ army, so she now occupied a smaller room in another section of the pyramid. Her advisor and captain Ser Barristen Selmy had led the defense against the Yunkish army, and had sent them into retreat. For now, she was safe. But they would be back as soon as they were able to regroup. Mereen was weak. The Yunkish corpses had accelerated the spread of the flux, and her people were dying in larger numbers. Those still surviving grew impatient with what seemed to be ineffectual rule by Dany, who they felt should have burned Yunkai when she had a chance. All she could do when she saw the festering bodies was burn them with Drogon’s fire, turning them to ashes before they could sicken her people further.

Dany had only hesitated to burn the city to avoid punishing many innocent people for the crimes of the masters. It wouldn’t be only they who died, it would be their families, women and children who themselves had done nothing wrong. Even some of the slaves and freedmen would die in the conflagration... and was that the kind of queen she wanted to be? Instead, she had married a lord of the slavers, Hizdahr zo Loraq, and agreed to open the fighting pits, among other compromises, thinking that might help keep peace. But clearly the slavers would except nothing less than the reinstitution of slavery. Ser Barristen had reported that Hizdahr had attempted her murder and was aligned with her enemies. He now sat in a cell, awaiting his sentence, along with his partner in treason Reznak mo Reznak. Meanwhile, Dany’s advisors quarreled over her next move. Ser Barristen advised that they continue with the defense on foot, and Grey Worm, the captain of the Unsullied, her army of formerly enslaved eunuchs, seemed to think they could win. But her other administrators, Skahaz the Shavepate, and her Dothraki captains Aggo and Rakharo, seemed to think that dragonfire was the solution. _Burn the city to the ground, and show them what it means to betray you_, Skahaz insisted.

Aggo and Rakharo and their search party had met her on the grass sea, just as she was about to succumb to her wounds, leaving the Dothraki who had followed her to scatter. She had nearly fallen off Drogon, but the moment she would totter and begin to nod off atop his neck, he would land. When she gained a second wind, he would fly again. She no longer had to shout at him or use her whip, which was now lost. He seemed to know what she wanted before she did.

There in the grass sea, the priestess Maebi had dressed her in a leather skirt and wrap, then washed her wounds in the water of the same stream Dany had tried to follow when she was lost. But her wounds throbbed and bled and made her feverish and weak. Had the party not found her, she might have died after all. She returned to her pyramid to find the city in flames, wracked with disease. Viserion and Rheagal had been released from their chains by a suitor from the Westerosi kingdom of Dorne who’d gotten burned alive for his trouble. Dany had chained them to protect the people, but she would never do that again. She only hoped other suitors vying for her hand would be more cautious than prince Quentyn Martell.

While she recovered, Dany weighed the consequences of the decision to burn Yunkai. She believed Ser Barristen and Grey Worm were right…her army was equal to the Yunkish army. Most of the Yunkish soldiers weren’t free men. They fought out of fear and need. But even so, many of her own men would be lost, and she needed them. Her conquest of Westeros would require all of them, and that conquest had waited long enough. A war on the ground would further delay her progress, even if they were victorious. Her army deserved the Seven Kingdoms, and she hesitated to let so many of them die before they even got to see their new home. On the other hand, burning the city seemed like an erasure of her reforms. What good was it to be a freed man, if you were nothing but ash and charred meat? Defeating the Yunkish masters, furthermore, would not solve the problem of the flux, which had spread to many of her soldiers as well. Those who didn’t die in battle would continue to die of sickness along with many of the people of Mereen. The truth was that victory was the only option. If she did not preserve her crown, her life would be at an end.

While Irri sponged Dany’s lash wounds gently and applied a freshly mixed salve to those parts still open and seeping, Jhiqui took the old bandages and last night’s sleeping frock away to be cleaned. She would return with clean bandages and a soft wrap for her to wear. Dany pulled her parchment and quill onto her lap and stared at it. She had been struggling to write a poem in honor of Strong Belwas, the sweet brave giant who had served on her queensguard. Weakened by a poison given to him by Hizdahr that had been meant for her, he had died in the battle. She wanted to write a dirge for him, one that captured his honor and the fury of the victory he helped make possible as Ser Barristen had told her. It was slow going. She kept having dreams about riding her dragons, and this occupied her mind in waking. Burning the Khals had felt good – very good. Yet she kept thinking about those Khals who had left the temple…had they gone out because they didn’t wish to participate in her rape? And if so, was that because they didn’t want her body spoiled beyond ransoming, or because they didn’t think it was right? Either way, she had turned them into charred bones_. If I look back, I am lost…_The fire did more than burn and kill, Dany had noticed. It could _trap_..it could _drive_. It could keep people in one place or force them to run in any direction she wished.

Missandei gently brushed the short strands of Dany’s hair forward so that they met in a point over her forehead. “Will you see Daario today, my queen. He has told this one of his urgent desire to see you,” she said.

Daario Naharis, a sellsword who had become her lover in addition to an important advisor, had returned from Yunkai with the information that would condemn her traitors. He too felt burning the city down was the right move…having been held there as a hostage for months. His suggestion was to meet with the masters to discuss terms of surrender, and while she had them together, burn them alive before taking the city for once and all. Dany agreed with the idea of meeting them, but at burning the city as a whole, she hesitated. Further, she hadn’t allowed him into her bed since he arrived. He would think it was due to her wounds, and that was part of it. But for Dany it was something more internal that had changed. She had loved Daario, but now her thoughts of him were fewer and brief. The notion of sleeping next to him did not make her feel safe and warm as it once had.

Dany shook her head. “Not yet. Tell him he must wait.”

“This one can’t help but pity him,” Missandei said.

Dany spun around and faced Missandei. She was getting taller, just like Drogon had grown bigger in his days of freedom. It was her idea that had helped Ser Barristen get a leg up on the Yunkish, as many of their mercenaries had deserted following an offer of gold in exchange for releasing the hostages – strategy offered by the young herald as they planned their attack. The girl had shown an unbreakable loyalty as well as wisdom. Dany reached up and laid a hand on her smooth brown cheek, brushing one stray tightly curled black hair behind her ear.

“My sweet Missandei, there is no one like you, do you understand? Do you understand that without you I would be lost?”

Missandei smiled and bowed her head, but Dany tucked a finger under her chin and lifted it up again. “Listen to me my beloved girl. You will never refer to yourself as ‘this one’ ever again. You are not one of many. You are the one, the only, Missandei of Naath, Advisor to the Queen. Let me hear you say this. With pride.”

Missandei looked surprised, but then took a breath and stood up straight.

“I am Missandei of Naath, Herald of the Queen.”

“No..not a herald. Advisor.”

Missandei’s eyes glistened. “I am Missandei of Naath, Advisor to Queen Daenerys Stormborn."

“Remember it,” Dany said. Then she turned to her parchment and began to write.

That night, Dany’s dreams were fitful and vivid. She was again wandering the great grass sea, starving and sick. She looked around for Drogon, but he was nowhere to be seen. Over a hill, something approached…a great white mass moving at startling speed. As it grew closer, Dany could see it was a gigantic white wolf, loping toward her with terrifying determination. Dany yelped and began to run as fast as she could, but the wolf closed in. Breathless, Dany stumbled, falling into the grass. The wolf leapt forward and pounced upon her, his giant forepaws on her shoulders. Dany screamed and shut her eyes tight, waiting for him to tear her throat out, but he did not. She opened her eyes and reached up to his muzzle to touch his fur, which was softer and thicker than any fur she had ever seen. When she touched him he dodged her muzzle and woofed softly, his tongue hanging from between his teeth. In spite of herself, Dany began to laugh. She went to clutch his ears, and the wolf dodged her again playfully, mouthing her hands but never biting them. Soon Dany was rolling around with the creature, wrestling and giggling and ruffling the wolf’s fur. He finally broke from her and ran away. Dany ran after him, saying _come back!_ The wolf led her over a huge hill, and beyond that hill was a blue and restless sea. At the top of the hill was a large hovel, to which the wolf headed without looking back. The hovel’s door was streaked with a red dripping gash of liquid that might have been blood. It slowly opened, and the wolf stepped inside. When he did, the little house with the red door disappeared, and Dany awoke weeping.[9]

[1] Benioff, David and D.B. Weiss, _Game of Thrones_, Season 6 Episode 4: “Book of the Stranger”

[2] Hurwitz, Mitchell. _Arrested Development_. Season 1, Episode 16: “Alter Egos.”

[3] Benioff & Weiss. Game of Thrones. Season 6 Episode 3: “Oathbreaker.”

[4] Ford Coppola, Francis. _Bram Stoker’s Dracula_. Columbia Pictures, 1992.

[5] Judge, Mike. _Office Space._ Twentieth Century Fox. 1999.

[6] Parker, Trey and Matt Williams. _South Park._ Season 12 Episode 9: “Breast Cancer Show Ever”

[7] Benioff and Weiss. _Game of Thrones_, Season 6 Episode 6: “Blood of My Blood.”

[8] Benioff and Weiss. _Game of Thrones_. Season 6, Episode 5: “The Door.”

[9] Craven, Wes. _The Serpent and the Rainbow_. Universal Pictures, 1988.


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